peristaltor

Really, really heavy.


Enlarge the Crushing Power!


More Bigger


That Awkward 'Oh, Shit' Moment Enlarged

Rural bridges: They ain't like the Romans used to make.

Via Lenny!

fabunobo posted with a pic of his Halloween costume the other day:


If you Love It!,
share props and adulation at his LJ.

Here's the thing: I didn't get it. At all.

Really.

And I see that as a good thing.

I'm bragging here. I have so distanced myself from commercial "news" media that not one pip of this silly story made it on my radar. Commercial "news" exists only to keep people in their seats staring at the blinky box through the commercials. ("That beverage in your hand can kill you! Stay tuned to find out how.") The thought of a 6-year-old maybe dangling from a gas bag hurtling across the sky is OJ-in-a-Bronco news. Yes, people find themselves riveted to the tube. But do they learn anything, anything at all?

I kept tripping on mention of Balloon Boy in the internets afterwards, but didn't pay much attention, apparently. Thought it was an ad campaign (which it kinda was). Not until I saw fabunudo's get-up did I finally ask The Wife and a friend what was up. Last night. I got the eye-roll on that one.

But here's the thing: All that time I wasn't following the exploits of a media-manipulative UFO crackpot family in Colorado, I was learning things that were far more likely true. Strangely -- and I say this with a tinge of pride in our American PBS system -- NPR didn't even mention this well enough for me to find it on Morning Edition. The podcasts to which I subscribe gave me my first hint before I broke down and asked The Wife: Clark Boyd at The World's Technology Podcast played the 5th Dimension's "Beautiful Balloon" as a hint of what he wouldn't be covering. And just today, the crew of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe gave me a 5-minute recap of all the details I need to know about the woo-woo father's stunt.

What's weirder still, some of my friends constantly come to me for quirky tidbits of info. Usually I can help them. They have no idea why I prove this repository of general knowledge . . . yet they think I care one whit when they try to update me about the latest from Dancing with the Stars or America's Got Talent. I know obscure but somewhat trivial detail because I don't follow that crap. For me, it's that simple.

I remember being glued to the White Bronco as it happened. Did my paying attention get OJ apprehended any faster? Nope. Not by one second. Lesson learned.

Raw news footage is just that, raw. Like raw food, it isn't ready for consumption. Basically, news should be finished before it is plated and served.

So, that's my story. I ask you: Is your life better because mention of this (*ahem*) inflated hype took up you time? How much time would you say was lost to this and similar stories, if any? Importantly, what do you think you weren't learning about in the time it took to relate this developing breaking story as it unfolded?

And think further: How many stories of this caliber but lacking the quirkiness of the Balloon Kid did you follow to no avail? How many spoonfuls of crap got shoved down your throat before you realized you were being duped by the "news?"

From this rant:

It's not that I'm cavalier about safety. I'm just a sucker -- so to speak -- for the facts. And the fact is: No child has been poisoned by a stranger's goodies on Halloween, ever, as far as we can determine. Joel Best, a sociology professor at the University of Delaware, studied November newspapers from 1958 to the present, scouring them for any accounts of kids felled by felonious candy. And...he didn't find any. He did find one account of a boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix his father gave him. Dad did it for the insurance money and, Best says, he probably figured that so many kids are poisoned on Halloween, no one would notice one more.

Well, they did and dad was executed. That's Texas for you. Another boy died after he got into his uncle's heroin stash and relatives tried to make it look like he'd been killed by candy. And that's it.

Now look at how the fear that our nice, normal-seeming neighbors might actually be moppet-murdering psychopaths has turned the one kiddie independence day of the year into yet another excuse to micromanage childhood. (Emphasis mine.)

The Wife and I theorize the fear of tainted home-made treats was started by Big Chocolate. Hershey's, M&M Mars, those guys gained millions in the sealed candy market, probably by simply starting whisper campaigns in the 1970s that snowballed into mass paranoia.

So, hey, let the kids off the leash. Let them wander and grow. Sure, they might skin their knees on occasion. Everyone does. That's how we learn about hard surfaces and the importance of traction.

That parental micromanagement leash: it's embarrassing to all involved.

( Oh, and in other news, this year I got into the spirit! )

First things first: I'm not someone who appreciates absolute descriptions. I see the planet and its people interacting in a myriad of ways best described with a myriad shades of grays, not blacks and whites. Is an act of offering someone a job, for example, capitalist exploitation or one of beneficent opportunity? For me, it depends on the job and the wage.

How about the decision one must make if one is "communist" or "capitalist?" In Orson Welles: A Biography, Welles tells his biographer of an encounter he had with an FBI agent during the Cold War. Agents were common in theater, since Hoover thought all entertainers were Commies until proven otherwise. Welles finally cornered the G-Man tailing him and asked him why he was being followed. The Fed said to prove he wasn't a communist. Welles asked him what a communist was. The Fed said, "Someone who gives his money to the government."

Welles pointed out that since he was at the top of the income bracket, he therefore paid 90% of everything he made in income taxes. "I guess that makes me 90% Communist," he concluded.

His answer always resonated with my belief in a spectrum of conditions providing one the boundaries of any given definition, as opposed to a binary "either/or" declaration of definition. More and more, though, I realize how unique I must be in this regard. I see in so many people the need to absolutely declare beyond any and all argument that X situation must be called X-ism, and that this definition must be maintained in perpetuity for all to see and learn from. These people can be found on both the right and the left sides of the political spectrum. The need to define and categorize knows no philosophical boundary. However, I have noticed one disturbing trend that does follow party lines, ( though not a way most could expect. )

So where are we? By abandoning nuance in favor of the bourgeois/proletariat divide, many on the left have created a blind spot in their thinking that fails to observe, collate and consider subtle distinctions in individual capitalist situations. The broad brush cannot fill in the tiny but important details. That's a problem, to be sure; but I hesitate to suggest it is a deliberate problem. No, economic theory can be complex and therefore might cause confusion. Cultural differences, historical context, personal myopia, all conspire to distort a more accurate portrayal of circumstances and the language that should be used to describe said circumstances. It's not deliberate; it's just complex.

I cannot, however, say the same is true of the right. I'm sorry, folks, but the language is in much graver danger of abuse from the more conservative elements of our society, a claim I intend to support with argument backed by evidence in Part II.

Remember my neighbor's dilapidated abode? Well, another neighbor just emailed these updated shots. The failing wall has failed, spectacularly.


Zoom in on catastrophe


For a gooder look

I feel sorry for the small gang of raccoons that lives there, not to mention the abundant rats. When it becomes no home for rodents, it's a bad house.

In happier news, it's sold! Hopefully the bulldozers will be rollin' in with destruction on their blades. We neighbors shall greet them with roses, wine and song.

Just a few days ago I mentioned a comment I made to my local NPR station. A few days after, I actually received a reply!

Your email conveying some concerns about business support of public broadcasting in general and (our station) specifically was forwarded to me. I would be very glad to speak with you and answer any questions that you may have.

Cool!

I've been putting in extra hours at work lately, so I didn't get a chance to sit down and compose a reply to J. until just now. I outlined my concerns about how corporate and business sponsorships cause what I call the Sugar Daddy Effect; even without direct threats of withdrawing support, sponsorships lie in the back of a reporter's mind, perhaps subtly steering the inquiry of any ongoing investigation away from a sponsor's interests. No reporter wants to wear the label of That Guy Who Costs Us Millions With His Big Mouth, do they?

Here's one paragraph, for a taste:

For example, consider the local television news and the overwhelming ad saturation provided by automobile dealerships. I've notice very few minutes from those outlets devoted to, say, tackling fuel efficiency requirements, something (your station) does very well by comparison. Considering the poor efficiency of most new vehicles, and the tendency for auto shoppers to notice this right away should they be made aware of it, this SDE makes perfect sense.

Here's the funny part, though: I had about five paragraphs lined up outlining what I see are the dangers of news organizations receiving corporate support . . . when I realized the guy receiving this email would be the station's Director of Corporate Support.

The farmer got letter of concern noting that hens might be disappearing, and they sent the fox to investigate.

I realized my gaffe, that I have probably been punked, and asked in a final paragraph for this guy to forward my notes to someone without so glaring a conflict of interest. I'll keep you posted if I receive anything else.

NPR

Resting upon the tablecloth one sees a clear, round receptacle, perhaps made of glass. Within it appears to be half-filled with a clear liquid shot through with translucent, rounded and clear blocks, perhaps ice.

How the receptacle got to be in this half-filled condition is hard to say; though, if one assumes the blocks are of ice, one might be able to rule out evaporation. The globules clinging to the receptacle's side appear to be condensation, a phenomenon most often associated with colder objects, not warmer.

That the globules form a line just at the level of the receptacle's internal fluid suggests that the glass has sat for some time at this level and has gathered atmospheric water to the colder portions of the exterior, so much so that the globules have started to run down the side of the receptacle, dampening the tablecloth with a ringed mark.


CNBC

Not only is the glass half full, there's every reason to suspect it might fill up fast. Liquidity literally gathers to this glass, clinging to the opportunities afforded just outside the main action and pooling at the base. Naysayers may cry foul, wondering what forces apparently drained half the glass's resources; but we here maintain this bearish attitude serves only to besmirch an otherwise apparently robust vessel with plenty of room for refreshing and profitable containment.


FAUX NEWS

Are restaurants poisoning their patrons? Though unconfirmed, the very real possibility of a clear and deadly fluid in a clear and seemingly innocent "glass" -- or is it just cheap plastic? -- must be investigated.

Suggestions of poison arose when obvious and deplorable leakage was spotted by our intrepid reporter, evidence that the seemingly refreshing fluid within had dissolved the glass, shooting it through with undetectable pinholes and allowing the liquid death to spread. What was once a strong and reliable vessel seems to have been compromised from within, allowing half of its resources to empty through these holes and stain the very fabric of the table.

If so, this glass may shatter, spreading the poison it contains. We should not, we cannot rest until this growing threat is further investigated.

. . . .

We've just learned that the glass holds water. This information does not change things, though. Why in a busy restaurant is a half-empty glass allowed? There must be a waitress nearby doing something other than her job. I'm thirsty just thinking about this deplorable situation.

solarbird has once again passed along a couple of wonderful posts from Karl Denninger. In the first, he suggests it's time to waterboard those responsible for covering up the vast extent of our current unreported financial crisis:

All these new "proposals" are doing is attempting to once again screw the American public, turning them (once again!) into debtors and renters while lying to them about being a "homeowner." In addition if the original mortgage was a purchase money first an effective refinance into an interest-only product will destroy the non-recourse nature of the note in those states where it applies, leading those who are trapped in these loans a couple of years from now to lose not only their house but everything else they possess. (Emphasis by the author)

In the second, he seems to echo Chris Martenson (whom I've mentioned before) when he says how very badly our debt will eat our future:

Everyone in America wants "a pony" - the magical alchemy that will turn lead into gold, or return their stock market portfolio to its previous purchasing power.

It won't happen so long as our government and citizens spend more than they make.

There is one and only one way to make that happen: You must grow output faster than debt. When there is a credit overhang this means you must get rid of the debt at a faster rate than GDP declines.

Don't listen to talk of "the recovery." Until these un-discussed debt problems are dealt with head-on, there won't be one. Instead, there will only be more kicking the can further down the road, where it will grow and wait to impoverish the next generation.

Ah, that grand time of the year when the local public stations staff the phones and wait for you to call in your donation, all the while interrupting the otherwise fine programming they constantly tout with outright begging more befitting of the Calcutta poor. I did my duty. I sent in my pledge. Later, I will actually fill out and mail the check.

This year, though, something new! A comment box, one that appeared just after I gave my info in the Required Fields.

Why not? Here's what I wrote:

I am very concerned that the PBS system -- your station included -- has eroded its integrity as an entity free from commercial influence by agreeing to air "enhanced sponsorhips," what should be called openly "commercials."

At what level would we have to donate to rid the local air of this corruption? To whom would I speak to even broach the topic?

And yes, I am serious.

You see, public radio and television used to be, well, ( public. )


Addendum, October 14, 2009: There are many reasons to separate commercial interests from our source of news, chief among them Faux "News":

It's clear that in 2009, Fox News is no longer in the business of journalism. Fox News isn't trying to inform people, it's trying to misinform them. That's not journalism. It's propaganda. But as long as the press continues to hold up the façade of journalism, Fox News will try to hide behind it.

Fascinating.

To the rabid optimists: Put down the pom-poms. Step away from the pink megaphone. You aren't helping.

Please read this. Without knowing it, without being able to articulated it as well, this has been my philosophy for decades.

I'll first make an up-front declaration of bias: I hate the anti-vaccination crowd.

For those of you unfamiliar with actress, comedianne and centerfold model Jenny McCarthy's hobbies, she has been probably the most visible and outspoken celebrity to endorse the vile lies that childhood vaccines, especially those containing mercury-based preservatives like Thimerisol, cause autism.

I call her positions on vaccine "vile lies" for good reason: At least four peer-reviewed studies have failed to show a connection. That doesn't stop folks -- including celebs like McCarthy and her boyfriend Jim Carrey, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Bill Mahr and a raft of others -- from flogging the Thimerisol horse corpse.

Ms. McCarthy, of course, has reason to be angry at autism; her son suffers from the condition. In this case, though, she has gone completely off the deep end attacking vaccines, even going so far as to suggest that the inevitable preventable deaths that follow people refusing to immunize their own children are a price worth paying to avoid an autism connection that (once again) has been debunked.

Let's really add to evidence of her dissonance. Though she has on more than one occasion likened vaccines to "poison," take a gander at what she had to say about one of the most deadly poisons known to man:

“I love Botox, I absolutely love it. I get it minimally so I can still move my face. But I really do think it’s a savior.”

Anyhoo, I'm not posting this just to rant. I was responding to alobar the other day. I think the Hygienic Hypothesis might be a more likely culprit, and said so. He asked a good question: Why now? ( Why are we facing an explosion of autism? )


Edit: Link and floppy verbiage corrected October 8, 2009.

Decades ago I dated a chess player, a very good chess player, one who trained with chess masters and knew first hand many of the names in competition at that time. One day in the smokey basement pub where chess players meet to play, she came back from a game downright pissed off.

She had lost. Now, she was very good, but people win and lose all the time. I asked her why she was so upset. Her explanation stumped me: "He played like a fish," she said.

Huh?

I had her describe what it meant to play "like a fish." She explained that fish make wild, unpredictable moves, that their play doesn't fit any recognizable pattern.

"But he won," I said. I suppose comments like this are one of the big reasons we haven't seen each other in almost 20 years; but I was honestly then trying to understand the difference between a truly great player who wins and a "fish" who wins. To me, they both win, so what's the difference? After all, if a master sat me down and schooled me in the ways of the board, I wouldn't know if I was undone by a lost Fibunacci Bishop or a Pawn's Gambit or the Flirty Queen. I would only know that I lost. Checkmate.

Out on a walk last night, I finally reasoned why the term "fish" might be used. Hook a fish and drag it out of the water, and it flops about madly on the deck or the dock without getting anywhere. A chess "fish," therefore, might be someone whose play seems erratic and pointless. They don't seem to be getting anywhere, or going anywhere. Ah, but the schooled opponent of the fish is judging the fish's moves on a learned pattern, the movement of one who walks on dry land.

Let's take this fish analogy a bit further and suppose that the fish player is actually playing by rules applicable in the water. Those spastic arches and flops across the board make no sense to us dry-landers; but put us in the drink and we shall see the fish's twitches move it across great distances with an admirable economy of effort. We walkers, on the other hand, slap and kick and flap about and barely get anywhere in the water. (I have a video of myself scuba diving in Hawaii, if anyone needs images of an amateur diver for comic relief.)

All this led me to reconsider a word upon which I've been stumbling quite a bit lately: ( Heuristics. )

solarbird gives what appears to be an excellent (but way over my head) analysis of the current market rally in her journal today. One of the many links had the quote in my subject line, Mark To Myth Losers: Americans posted by Karl Denninger.

He gives a frightening run-down on how many losses from foreclosures and defaults the banks are failing to report, often against the regulations requiring such reporting:

The bottom line here folks is as I have been hollering about for over two years: Banks and other institutions are carrying paper at FAR beyond its reasonable fair-market value - or that which it will EVER realize under any reasonable set of assumptions going forward.

Bluntly, we have institutionalized accounting fraud and the so-called "regulators" that are supposed to put a stop to and even prosecute these acts are willfully and intentionally ignoring them. The cities and towns across America are the big losers where these practices cause blight through intentional neglect while these "banks" claim to be in far better financial condition than is in fact the case.

In addition, this willful disregard for the truth means that these bankrupt institutions remain in the system as "zombies", unable to perform their critical role in credit intermediation. (Emphasis, this time, by the author)

This can't end well. My question is simple: Why is this info hidden only in the bowels of the intertubes? This indicates our current economic troubles are going to be far worse than the cheerleaders on the telly are suggesting.

I commented in cargoweasel's LJ today. Looking back, I typed hastily and in anger, something that led me to make a comment that frightens me some hours later. For that, I apologize.

I'm reminded of Sam Kinneson (sp?) and his very early stand up. On spousal abuse, he said (in so many words) I don't condone wife beating . . . but I UNDERSTAND IT!!!

Well, when violence strikes from a perceived area of interest, people take notice. By now, all have heard of the census worker hanged in Kentucky with the word "fed" written on his body. Many have pointed out that the rage leading to this attack can be rightly attributed to the right-wing noise machine attempting to mobilize their base, all part of their effort to undermine in any desperate way any momentum the perceived left has made in the last few months.

What happens when that violence becomes more commonplace? What is the most appropriate response?

You see, I feel that is, as Zappa used to say, the crux of the biscuit. The right feel they are, well, right. They feel their positions on issues have been ordained by The Creator of All. They feel the violence they undertake -- be it the hanging of a substitute teacher or the gunning down of a doctor or the shooting of a black guard in a museum -- is justified as punishment for the fact that someone dared defied their god.

The left . . . what response have they? And herein lies the rub.

While looking into the matter, I've learned that the left tends to view more than just two sides of any given issue, tending instead to immerse themselves in the complexity and nuance, details that defy simple vilification. The left tends also to eschew violence, be it torture, assassination, what have you. There are many reasons for this. Despite the lessons Jack Baur may teach, torture, for example, doesn't get good information from the tortured. It almost never does. Think about it: If someone is willing to die for his cause, what is a little pain (in the short term) going to prove? In the long term, his information is probably of no value. Really, this should be obvious, given the lessons other countries have to offer. If Israel has abandoned torture as a means of interrogation, it's a good bet they tried it and failed to see the value. Lesson learned.

So when the right targets the left, what defense does the left have, well, left?

I was debating a good friend on such an issue years ago. He felt my position on (IIRC) global climate change was pussy-esque. He didn't agree on the very premise, and tried the ol' "Why don't you kill yourself?" ploy. It's a classic. If people are the biggest cause of global warming, one argues, why don't those that care about the issue off themselves?

Ah, I pointed out, not so fast. If a person cares enough about the issue, he or she should take down the biggest polluters, the biggest carbon output sources, as quickly as possible, all while living as carbon-free a lifestyle as they can manage. Down go the Hummer drivers, for starters. The coal plant operators get it next, followed by anyone who lobbies for Big Oil, Big Auto, what have you. This will reduce the pollution much more quickly than simply reducing the number of people who are striving to make a difference. As solutions go, it's an effective and compelling argument.

And that's the problem.

Any issue can be reduced to Us v. Them. It could be Kanye jumping onstage being a dick or the neighbors massing troops on the border. It doesn't matter what it is, really. What happens when Them just get too visible, too successful? What happens when Them starts a'winnin'? The knee-jerks in all of us reach for a handy blunt instrument and a nearby melon to crack. And if we swing and connect, score! Our side wins a round.

But we don't. Our side ultimately can lose in so many ways.

I will say if I as a lefty get targeted by melon-seeking object-swinging righties, I'll use whatever means at my disposal to defend me and mine. That's not even an issue. Go, Second Amendment!

But when it comes to avenging a teacher in Kentucky, I really have to calm the fuck down and remember that, given time for the issue to ferment, that stupid, stupid, stupid act is likely to do more damage to Beck and Bachmann and the rest of the paid rabble rousers . . . as long as we never let them forget it.

My brother metalmensch was sent to work in India a few years ago. Being my brother, he had his eye trained for things I, too, would find interesting, things beyond the travel brochure, things alien enough to folks like he and I that they verge on the outright fascinating.

He found such fascination in . . . trash cans. They weren't ordinary trash cans, no sirree. Check out one such can:


Litter can in Ramoji Studios

A few details simply must be noted. First, his Indian friends consider these cans "fiercely" embarrassing. That he was constantly shooting pictures of them in scenic areas like Ramoji Studios and the Taj Mahal was even worse. Shouldn't he be taking pictures of things worth viewing? Details of Indian life that might put the sub-continent in a pleasing light?

I'll get to why his friends thought his actions embarrassing in a bit. Right now, though, I'd like to share some podcast material that illustrates why I think we in the United States might have even more reason to feel fierce embarrassment: ( Simply, many of our buildings and neighborhoods are just as freakish and ugly as these cans. )

Who could this boy be?

Evidence suggests this tyke is a year old, maybe a few days older. This was probably taken, judging by the faded nature of the print and the garment worn, in 1970.

The stare, though -- that's timeless. Whoever bears this stare might be a clue, even decades later.

I'm stoked. Radiolab has covered the parasite thing! They did a darn fine job, too, interviewing (among others) Carl Zimmer from The Loom, one of my fave blogs and author of the definitive introduction to parasitism, Parasite Rex. I've convinced two doctors and my own mother to read that book.

They also interviewed David Pritchard, someone I mentioned here, who cured own his allergies with a dose of worms.

There was also a guy who infected himself and thus shed his allergies, but who is going one step further; he's selling his worms to anyone who wants them. I'm sick of sneezing, sick of drugs which, if strong enough to dampen the sneezes, make it illegal for me to drive and thus work.

I'm on board with the Hygenic Hypothesis. I might wait until spring when the fun usually begins, but I'm ready. I am so ready.

Worm me.


Addendum, some minutes later: Here's Jasper Lawrence's website. He's the one who's selling the fruits of his butt. He also demonstrates the value of associating any business with a hot chick in pearls and furs.

A book I loved, Annie's Box by Randall Keynes, has been made into a movie, Creation. It tells Charles Darwin's story through his and his families personal writings, giving deep insight into what happened in a life that lead to probably the most influential scientific theory of all time.

I will not, though, be seeing it in the theater as I had hoped, at least not in the United States:

US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

The distributors have pussied out. Who cares what other people believe? Let those that want to see the movie see the fucking movie. Nope.

The end of the Telegraph article says it all:

Early reviews have raved about the film. The Hollywood Reporter said: "It would be a great shame if those with religious convictions spurned the film out of hand as they will find it even-handed and wise."

Well, we wouldn't want that, now, would we?